REFORMED WITNESS
Volume XVI, March 2010, Number 3
The Reformed Faith on Civil Government
An editorial by Rev. David J. Engelsma
From the December 1, 1988, issue of The Standard BearerSee more articles by this author
Also in this issue: The Duty of the Church in Respect to the State in Preaching, Praying and Positions - by Rev. Dale Kuiper
No one can doubt the importance of sound, clear understanding of civil government: of the authority that civil government has over him, and of the duty he has toward civil government. Not only does Scripture make the Christian's relationship to the state part of his or her thankful, holy life (Romans 13:1-7; I Peter 2:11-17), but also the broad sphere of the state's power assures that each of us comes into direct contact with civil government, or is affected by civil government daily. The teenager who wants to drive must receive a license from the state, and thereafter submit to the state every time he gets on the highway. The preacher officiates at the wedding of a couple only if the state has authorized the marriage, and says so in the ceremony. The government of the United States requires parents to educate their children to a certain age, and stipulates the manner in which this is to be done. Farmers and businessmen have to contend with many laws regulating their operations. The working man is painfully aware of the state every time he notices the large chunk of his wages withheld for taxes. There are also the effects of civil government upon our lives that we usually take for granted (but should not!): the protection by the police; the security from invasion because of the armed forces and the general order in our country because of government at all levels.
It is especially urgent that Reformed Christians be clear and sound in their thinking about civil government today, because of powerful movements that tempt them to adopt erroneous notions and unlawful practices in this area of their lives. Revolution is now a Christian option! Indeed (we are told), revolution is the Christian calling! In the 60s the liberal churches joined in the civil disobedience by which the blacks forced the state to give them their civil rights. At present, liberal theology approves violent revolution as the means of liberating the oppressed in Latin America and South Africa, if not as the primary means, then as a last resort. Of late, conservative and evangelical Christians, including some of the most prominently named, not only approve civil disobedience (i.e., deliberate, strategic violation of certain laws of the land and flaunting disregard for the authority of the state responsible for these laws) in order to compel the state to change by force laws regarded as unjust, but they also proclaim this lawless behavior as obedience to the gospel and call gospel-believing Christians to participate in it as an expression of discipleship to Christ. Liberals and conservatives, modernists and evangelicals are all playing the same game, the one to deliver the downtrodden from a life of poverty and misery, the other to save the unborn from the murder of abortion. "For God's sake, rebel!"
It cannot have escaped the attention of the members of our Protestant Reformed Churches that at least three cases of appeal involving the relationship of the Reformed believer and the civil government have come to the broader assemblies in the past few years. This reminds us, if we need reminding, that the matter of the Reformed Faith's teaching about the state is of practical importance for the life of our own churches. In 1986 Classis West upheld a consistory's discipline of a member, who refused to comply with the income-tax laws of the land, thus condemning as revolutionary the tax-protest movement. Synod 1987 decided on a case of the remarriage of a divorced person. One important element of the decision was Synod's recognition of the state's regulation of the civil and societal aspect of marriage, so that "the sinfulness of the marriage of a divorced person does not make null and void this civil aspect of the marriage, and thus all reality of the marriage, contracted under the God-given authority of the State" ("Acts of Synod," Art. 14). Last year, an appellant asked Synod to overturn a decision of Classis East that required him to submit to the ruling of a civil court granting visitation rights to the children of his divorced wife. Synod upheld Classis' decision on the ground, in part, that "the right of a biological mother to have visitation rights with her children is recognized and protected by the State (Romans 13)..." ("Acts of Synod," 1988, Art. 29). In all three of these cases, the assemblies honored the authority of the state and called on our members to submit to this authority.
As Reformed churches, we confess that civil government has been ordained by God. Whatever particular government exists in a country has been ordained by God. Government is not "of the people", government is of God: "There is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God (Romans 13:1)". The officials of a government, from the chief executive to the bureaucrat who shuffles papers, have received authority to govern you and me "from above" (John 19:11).
The state, with its myriad officers, is the servant of God. Three times in the classic passage in the New Testament on the Christian's responsibility to the state (Romans 13:1-7), does the apostle call the state and its officers "ministers," or servants, of God. This is an honorable title indeed! Government is not only or even primarily the servant of the people. As the servant of God, government must serve God. What a difference it would make, if our government would see itself as a servant, not primarily of the people, but of God. In this case, great issues would not be decided on the basis of public opinion polls, but on the basis of the will of God. Even though slightly over half of the population might favor abortion on demand, the Supreme Court would rule that abortion is murder, punishable by death, on the ground that this is the will of God, plainly revealed both in the law of nature and in the Bible.
Regardless of the state's ignorance of its servant-hood, it does in fact serve God. The service it renders is the keeping of some outward order in society by the punishment of criminals and the protection of those who do well (I Peter 2:14). The state's task is the administration of external, earthly justice in a nation, and every state carries this task out, however imperfectly, even the most corrupt of them.
This is no small benefit to the church and to the Christian. Outward order in a land is a precious gift of God to us. Take away the magistrates and, as Calvin said, "we all must live like rats in the straw." The worst government is much to be preferred to anarchy.
God's purpose with civil government is that, by the outward restraint of the dissoluteness of men, the church can exist and carry out her task of preaching the spiritual, inner righteousness of the gospel, thus extending the Kingdom of God. Likewise, the people of God can live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty, i.e., Kingdom-lives (I Timothy 2:2).
God has two great servants in the world-the church, which serves Him freely by grace, and the state, which serves Him for the most part (there are a few Christians in government, here and there) by dint of God's sovereign might of providence, even as Cyrus in the Old Testament. (Cyrus ordered the rebuilding of the temple by the Jews.)
Reformed Christians ought to honor God's servant, the state. They may not view it as devilish. They should not dismiss government as "dirty politics." No God-fearing young person may ever call the policeman, "pig."
We may use the state in the functions God intends it to serve. The Christian may have recourse to the courts in defense of his name and property. A church may claim the protection of the authorities for the possession of their property and the peace and order of their meetings, as Article 28 of the Reformed Church Order states. A position in government is a perfectly proper profession for a Reformed Christian. Young men must register for the draft, and serve in the armed forces when called up.
Never may the child of God revolt or "resist," as the King James Version puts it in Romans 13:1ff. The prohibition against revolution is absolute and unconditional. This is historic Calvinism. The notion, popular today, that Calvinism is a revolutionary theology is mistaken. Both Luther and Calvin unconditionally forbade revolution by the Christian. For both, the only permissible way to bring a tyrant down was the legal resistance by the "lesser magistrates." One of the main purposes for the writing of the Belgic Confession was to dissociate the Reformed church from the seditious anabaptists. Writ large in our Confession is the claim, "We Reformed are not revolutionaries." The Heidelberg Catechism makes rejection of all revolutionary conduct (including rebellion of the heart!) a creedal stand, when it binds upon every Reformed person that he submit to "all in authority over me... and also patiently bear with their weaknesses..." (Lord's Day, 39).
The importance of this is two-fold:
- Thus, we escape the wrathful judgment of God, indeed the damnation that He visits on all who resist His ordinance, His servant.
- Thus, we distinguish ourselves from the world that is in revolt against the authority of God, pleasing our Sovereign by a holy life.
Perhaps by this time alone among Reformed and Presbyterian churches, the Protestant Reformed Churches are, and can be, consistent in their testimony and behavior of submission to God-ordained authority. For at the cost of great personal sacrifice by many working men and at the cost of numerical growth, these churches have resolutely opposed the revolt against the authority of the employer-the violent revolt against the authority of the employer-in the sphere of labor that is inherent in the labor union. Our stand against rebellion has not been cheap.
Unconditional submission is not the same as unconditional obedience. The state is not God. The God and Father of Jesus Christ is God. Only He commands our unconditional obedience. The state is to be obeyed except when its law demands disobedience to the will of God in Holy Scripture. Exactly because Reformed Christians obey for God's sake, or for "conscience sake," as Romans 13:5 puts it, they adopt a watchful, critical stance with regard to civil government. Caesar shall not have the things that are God's.
There are ominous signs in our country. The state deifies itself, taking to itself the prerogatives of God, as is evident in the abortion-law-the state seizes sovereignty over life and death. The state becomes totalitarian, thrusting itself into every area of life, as is evident generally in the welfare state and particularly in the state's funding of and control over the care of little children in the day-care centers. The state intrudes into the sphere of the church, attacking what the Scottish Presbyterians called the "crown rights of King Jesus." A court recently fined a church for exercising church discipline upon a member; a current case has the courts threatening a church's pastoral counseling of its members, and the fear that the state may penalize churches that refuse to allow women to hold church-office or to permit practicing homosexuals to be members is not far-fetched.
Even then the church may not revolt. But neither will it obey. In the name of Christ, she says to the insubordinate servant of God, "We ought to obey God rather than men." Then, as has happened again and again in the history of the church, she suffers for Christ's sake, not resisting.
Still, the state is God's servant. For the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.
As for the punishing of the ungodly, unjust, corrupt, and even antichristian rulers, we let the God of these gods deal with them. He has His ways of doing so.
- DJE
in Preaching, Praying and Positions
By Rev. Dale H. Kuiper
From the December 1, 1988, issue of The Standard BearerSee more articles by this author
The church of Jesus Christ, as she honors her Head as the Lord of lords and King of kings, is very conscious of the fact that she lives and witnesses in the midst of a world which contains governments of many different kinds and at many levels. Her attitude towards the magistracy in her official labors, as well as in the life of her members, is very definitely set forth in Holy Scripture; it is set forth as binding and for all time. Since this is part of God's Word, it becomes part of the preaching; as part of the preaching, it belongs to the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ.
Rather than adopting an attitude of superiority on the part of believers towards the magistracy, or encouraging ignorance in them regarding the purpose, source, and function of civil government, or engendering disobedience against the law of the land, the church in her preaching calls the people of God to submission and obedience, with understanding and joy. That the church must do this periodically in the preaching is clear from the powerful Word of God found in such passages as Matthew 22, Romans 13, I Peter 2, and Titus 3. Further, this is plainly demonstrated by the examples of David, Daniel, the apostles, and Jesus Christ Himself.
The Gospel's call to submission unto the civil magistrates is a matter of thankfulness to God. For this reason those Reformed churches that still carefully preach the Heidelberg Catechism hear this call under the third part of the Catechism, "Of Thankfulness," when the fifth commandment of the Law of God is expounded and when the requirement to "show all honor, love, and fidelity to my father and mother, and all in authority over me" is set forth (Lord's Day 39). That thankfulness enters in here, rather than fear or merit, ought to be seen from two points of view. First, we testify by this submissive conduct gratitude toward God for providing Jesus Christ as the perfect Keeper of the law in our place, as the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. In the knowledge of that, the believer, with the law as his guide, shows his love to God. But more, he finds in the keeping of the fifth commandment an opportunity to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, because he understands that the powers that be are ordained of God, and are ordained of God to function as the means through which the exalted Christ rules! He submits always, and obeys unless for conscience sake he cannot, as unto the Lord.
The Gospel's call to submission carries with it the call to the church to be witnesses of God. When the apostle Peter exhorts us to "submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake," he does so under the heading of "an honest conversation among the Gentiles." When the unconverted see the good works of the saints, they shall under God's grace "glorify God in the day of visitation." This truth the Catechism includes in Lord's Day 32: "...and that, by our godly conversation, others may be gained to Christ."
Without controversy, the church preaches the Word of God as that Word of God describes civil government and calls the believer to honor that government. Thus sermons on the paying of taxes, the honoring of authority, the lawful work of government, and the end of earthly governments, are perfectly in order in the church.
What is not so clear is how the church prays in respect to the government God has instituted in this world in general or in a particular part of the world specifically. Here there is some controversy. Pastors hear from members of their flocks, from time to time, that they are not praying for the government. At a recent office-bearers conference in the West, the complaint was sounded that our ministers don't pray for government officials nearly enough. Are these well-meant criticisms justified? Scripture makes clear that prayers must be made for kings and others in eminent places by the church. Nowhere is this more clearly stated than in I Timothy 2:1-7, part of which reads:
I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
Before we face the questions, "How are earthly rulers to be mentioned in our prayers?" and, "What is the purpose of these prayers for them?", let us get two points firmly in mind, The purpose of Paul's first letter to Timothy is that he and the church may know how to behave in the house of God (I Timothy 3:15). Therefore, the apostle is giving instruction regarding the public prayers of the people of God during the worship services; we would say, during the congregational prayer offered by the minister. So, too, the exhortations regarding the dress of women and the silence of women pertain to their behavior and their silence in the church. Secondly, the word "all" in this passage (I Timothy 2:1,4,6) does not mean "every." The word "every" counts noses, refers to each individual in a group; it is distributive in nature. The word "all" is collective; it looks at people as groups, without saying anything about every member within the group. Unless this is appreciated, the only alternative is the Arminian notion that God wills every man to be saved and Christ gave Himself a ransom for every individual in the world; and then we are to pray for every person in the world (I Timothy 2:1) without distinction. Indeed, a Reformed commentator claims, "the church must remember that she is the intercessor for the world. The world cannot pray. The church is to bring the needs of the world before the throne of God. Herein too she is the salt of the earth. The world will not last long if the salt has lost its savor. When the church is gathered for worship, she is to bring the world's needs to God's mercy seat." With this we cannot agree. (See Jesus' prayer in John 17:9.)
Prayer must be made for all men, that is, for all kinds or classes of men. This is borne out by Titus 2 and Galatians 3 where we read of these various classes of people: Jews and Greeks, bond and free, male and female, young and old. Paul must have noticed that in Ephesus a certain class or group of people was being neglected in the congregational prayers: the kings and princes. How surprised Timothy and the saints at Ephesus must have been to receive this instruction! Nero was the Roman emperor; the governors, proconsuls, and town clerks for the most part were decidedly against the Christian faith and were ready to do the Jews a favor. But it is wrong to exclude any class of people from our prayers.
The reason that prayers are made also for government officials is that God wills to save His elect also from this group, have them come to the knowledge of the truth, and enjoy the ransom that Christ paid for them. The church is to pray for the salvation of kings and princes! This does not require, as a matter of fact, that a certain segment of the congregational prayers be given over to petitions on behalf of these officials, at length and by name! But they are to be included as the church prays for the salvation of the people of God, known unto Him before the foundations of the world!
There is another aspect to all this. After all, God does not will to save many from the class of the powerful, rich and mighty (I Corinthians 1:27-28). But these rulers do have a great influence upon the life of the church and the labors of the church. If there is a believing ruler over a certain domain, it certainly is easier for the believers there to live a "quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty." We think of laws concerning the Sabbath, concerning the right to work, and the right to assemble. On the contrary, unbelieving magistrates, ruling according to opinion polls, taking bribes, lusting for power, can cause hardship for the church-perhaps no right of assembly, sermons to be approved by the secretary of religion, no religious programs on radio or television, no mission work allowed in the country! And since God wills to gather His church from all classes of people and from every nation of the world, prayers are to be made that Christ may so rule that the work of the preaching of the Gospel be not hindered. Finally, let us who live in lands of religious freedom, such as the United States and Canada, be sure to express thanksgiving to God for these liberties that we presently enjoy! How easily we take for granted these wonderful freedoms, which many people of God do not presently enjoy and which will be taken from us before Jesus returns.
Briefly we wish to consider yet the duty of the church in respect to the actions or proposed actions of various governmental bodies-the whole matter of the church writing position papers on certain issues, which are then presented to the government with the purpose of influencing legislation. Many church bodies are engaged in such activity. Synods and other assemblies of the church formulate positions on nuclear bodies, abortion, the righteousness of a certain war, pollution of the environment, admission of Red China to the UN, apartheid in South Africa, and the like. Here we must make a clear distinction between the activity of the church as an institute on the one hand, and the individual member of the church, who is a citizen of a certain country on the other hand. Elsewhere in this issue the calling of the child of God toward his government and the issues that face his government will be discussed. Here we are concerned only with the proper involvement of the church in these things. How ought the church to behave?
We find nothing in Scripture to suggest, much less demand, that the church concern herself with matters of civil legislation. The church by her very marks is busy with the preaching of the Gospel, the administration of the sacraments, and the application of Christian discipline to unrepentant sinners within her membership. The church is not called by God or directed by Scripture to discipline the world. The church is not the salt of the earth in the sense of getting out into that world to preserve it; Scripture never speaks of salt as a preservative. Salt is that which renders something savory or tasty! And the presence of the faithful church on the earth makes the entire earth tasty unto God! Let the church be busy in preaching all the truth, and applying that truth to the problems and trials that believers face in this world. Thus armed, the child of God can go forth to battle as a saint who is a citizen of some earthly kingdom for a time. Thus informed, he votes according to the dictates of his conscience, signs petitions as he sees fit, trains his children to honor the king.
That this is the Reformed view of the duty of the church regarding the things of the state is clear from Article 30 of our Church Order where we find that in Consistory, Classis, and Synod "ecclesiastical matters only shall be transacted." This maintains the separation of church and state. This helps to insure that the church does not mistake her mission in this world, and this shows that the church becomes involved only when one of her membership breaks a civil law, or when the state so intrudes into the sphere of the church, that under oppression the church addresses the State for relief and points it to her God-given duty.
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